Fall Walking

   In the distance, the fall leaves create a shimmering kind of impression. At times, it appears as though the trees were on fire. The flicker in reds and golds until they fade out into the hazy sky.
      I remind myself that this phenomenon I am observing is a kind of optical illusion. When I get close to the leaves, I no longer see the individual ripples anymore.  Rather, the leaves start to take on the form of solidity as I get closer to their forms.
     The neighborhood, what they call the Bridal Path, looks a bit forbidding; no sidewalks and narrow paths in some places. The gates are all ironed out, with lions and  heraldry gracing the sides and stony pillars. A few cars are lining the garages and along the sides of the streets. But I don't see too many people on this Thanksgiving weekend. The streets even look a bit lonely in places, even though the houses retain a certain majesty. And I feel like a voyeur if I linger too long to gaze at the architecture.
   It is not too long before a ladybug perches on my hand. I marvel at the ladybug's orange-colored, mottled surface. The ladybug seems to linger with me for a while and I start to wonder. I feel a faint pinching sensation along my finger, but I don't think too much about it. I only sense and enjoy the contact of this small insect. But when the ladybug finally flies away after about half an hour, I see a tiny marking on my finger. It appears that the ladybug was hungry! But I didn't mind to give it some of my blood. After all, it's not that I need all this blood to keep me alive.
   During the weekend talk, there was a topic about the four elements of the body. I remember that the four elements in Buddhist philosophy are earth (which corresponds to the bones and skin, the solid parts of the body), water (blood), fire (body heat) and wind (circulation and breath).   It interests me that these same elements recombine in different permutations, across the natural world. The ladybug even took some part from my body and put it into its own. Even something as solid as bone has to be replenished through food. Without the right kinds of minerals,these solid structures would quickly become fragile and start to break easily.
    Even then, where did the elements of my own body come from? Was there really a 'me' that had given anything to the ladybug at all? Everything that I have in my body seems to be mine to 'keep', but is it really that way? I remind myself of the time when I had read that the cells in our body are constantly being replaced at a fast rate. I can't really say that any of the skin cells or hair cells that I have today are the ones I had when I was born. Going down into this, I can see that there is no solid origin to this movement. Even when I say, "I think that...", the "I" of now is not the same as the one from five minutes ago or five years ago. I even reflect on how the cells that compose the body must borrow their energy from somewhere: from the foods we eat, from the soil,from water, and from the sun.Without these things, would the body even exist for a week?
    Reflecting on these biological and natural process might seem a bit strange, but it also seems a useful reflection on the constant flow of processes and materials. I wonder, do those who study the life sciences perhaps feel more gratitude, to know that all the elements that make up living bodies are composed of the minutest of elements from many places? But besides teaching a sense of gratitude, life cycles such as those of the seasons could be a way of demonstrating the inter-relatedness of forms. When I see that my own body is a constant give and take with other bodies in the world (plants, other humans, animals, etc), perhaps I might hesitate to think that my body needs to be privileged over another being's body. Feeling this way, I might lower my defenses and find a reason to better relate to living beings.